With the advent of online street imagery databases, it is now common practice for computer users to consult or preview street-level imagery as a navigation aid, i.e. to prepare for a trip in lieu of, or in addition to, consulting a two-dimensional road map. To do so, the user accesses the street-level imagery at the starting point of a projected route and then views successive imagery by moving forward through the street-level images one click at a time toward the destination. This provides the user with a preview of what the user will expect to see when navigating the route. This technique, however, is extremely tedious as it requires the user to click stepwise through the route. In some instances, there may be long stretches of road that contain no navigational decision points. The user has to advance through these sections to the navigational decision points, making the process time-consuming and inefficient. A solution to this technical problem is therefore highly desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.